Democracy in Denmark

We start the year with a look back to 2019’s final event. We had the pleasure to meet a small group of active and engaged youngsters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Karoliina, who represented Finland at Participate in Active Rural Democracy, tells us a bit about the experience.

When I left for Denmark 12th of November I was super excited because democracy has always been really interesting and important topic to me. I knew something about the topic in advance but I was really hoping to learn even more. I had been on a Rural Youth Europe event before so I knew that I would enjoy the week but I just didn’t know how much.

Everyday we had a lot of different workshops that challenged our views and opinions. At first we learned the basics about democracy for example we defined the terms related to our topic and then we practised political changemaking together in groups. The most amazing part of our project was the excursion to Parliament and after that meeting local politicians. The excursion and meeting made us really think about the fact that being a politician isn’t easy at all – it’s in fact the opposite. Politicians don’t have much free time so the job is super demanding.

During the democracy project we got to meet a lot of new people and share knowledge about our countries. Hearing different problems and opinions from other countries made me open my eyes. We learned that democracy isn’t easy and we shouldn’t take it for granted because it is always challenged. The exercises were really practical and that is the reason why every session we had was very interesting and we were never bored.

Overall I’m glad that I learned a lot of new information and met new people and got a few really good friends. I’m sure we will keep in touch in the future. It was a great week with amazing people.